The Government's volte-face over the Planning and Energy Act shows how times
have changed

Let’s scroll back six years or so to what now seems a looking-glass world, for that was the time that the Conservative Party was making itself (almost) electable by championing green policies to shed its “nasty” image. David Cameron had been to the Arctic to hug huskies and had briefly put a windmill on his roof (a “sweet little thing”, he called it, which had to come down when somebody complained). And we were being urged to “Vote blue. Go green”.

A Tory MP, Michael Fallon, had the once-in-a lifetime luck to come top in the ballot for private members’ bills – and introduced an environmental one. My colleague Philip Johnston rightly hailed this as “a sign of the political times”, since Mr Fallon – “very much a member of the Thatcherite free-market, No Turning Back wing of the Conservative Party” – was far from being “someone you would automatically consider a tree-hugger”. More remarkably still, he got it through unopposed.

The then party chairman, Eric Pickles, backed the measure, which let councils force developers to meet higher standards of energy efficiency than required under national building regulations, and ensure the resulting homes got some energy from solar panels or other renewable sources.

Indeed the Planning and Energy Act, as it became, fitted the party’s priorities, being a voluntary measure for councils which enshrined localism as well as protecting the environment. And it addressed a need, for Britain’s standard of energy efficiency in homes (less than half are properly insulated), like its use of renewables, is among the lowest in the developed world.

“We are all in this together,” said Mr Fallon of the battle against global warming, adding: “I want to see councils leading the fight against climate change.” And a Tory policy document on the “low carbon economy”, which Mr Cameron launched in a webcast interview with me, promised to ensure it was “implemented in full”.

Back to 2013, and the world as it now is. The Act is a success: most of England’s 324 planning authorities use it to tighten efficiency standards on new houses and install renewables, and it has become the principle driver of such improvements. Yet the same Mr Pickles who espoused the measure is now considering abolishing it, while Mr Fallon, now the energy minister, seems to want to ditch the Government’s climate-change undertakings.

Mr Pickles, now Communities Secretary, proposes to “amend or remove” the Act as part of a review of housing standards out for consultation. The review, aimed at simplifying the “large and complex range of local and national standards, rules and codes that any developer has to wade through”, is long overdue: there are, for example, 12 different wheelchair standards for housing in London alone. But its plans for Mr Fallon’s initiative have caused widespread alarm.

It justifies the volte-face on the grounds that national building standards are being “progressively strengthened” to make the measure unnecessary. But their latest “strengthening”, in July, was more than a year overdue and fell far short of what had been expected. As a result, says the Renewable Energy Association, scrapping the Act would “essentially stop the incorporation of renewables in new building for up to 10 years”.

The review also plans to “wind down” the Government’s Code for Sustainable Homes, which sets out a roadmap for future improvements, including abandoning a reduction in water wastage that would cost a three-bedroom house only £68.

All this would only seem to benefit developers – some of whom have lobbied against the green rules – though Mr Fallon took care, when introducing the measure, to ensure that it did not “inhibit housing”. Housebuyers would recoup any extra costs: expert assessments have worked out that their energy bills would be reduced by a third if the higher standards were applied.

I’ve not yet seen a reaction from the energy minister himself, but it seems his views have turned right round too. This week he hinted that the Government would scale back on renewable energy and seemed to indicate, in an aside at the Conservative Party conference, that he would like to “scrap” Britain’s “strong environmental and climate change commitments”.

Both he and George Osborne, the Chancellor, stressed that Britain should not get ahead of the rest of Europe – though in fact we’re close to the bottom of the EU league on both energy efficiency and renewables.

Strangely, the Prime Minister sings a different tune. Earlier this year, he pledged to make Britain “the most energy-efficient nation in Europe” and still occasionally repeats his promise to lead the “greenest government ever”. But, as in Alice’s looking-glass world, that particular jam always seems to be due tomorrow.

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In outer space, Nasa’s probe discovers a fantastic plastic

It boldly went where no man has gone, and found… Tupperware. Yes, Nasa’s unmanned Cassini probe has detected propylene, the chemical used to make the plastic food containers, in the smoggy, brownish atmosphere of Titan, much the biggest of Saturn’s 62 moons.

It was picked up by the craft’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer, which analyses substances by measuring infrared energy in much the same way, says the agency, as “our hands feel the warmth of a fire”.

Mind you, Titan is no picnic. Though it has the only lakes ever found outside Earth, refreshed by rain, they consist of liquid methane and ethane, while temperatures drop to minus 180C. But Scott Edgington, Cassini’s deputy project scientist, shrugs off its inhospitability even for alien Tupperware parties, saying he is “always excited when scientists discover a molecule that has never been observed before in an atmosphere”.

Not that Nasa has had much time to celebrate: it has had to send 97 per cent of its staff home as part of the US government shutdown, prompting a message from another spacecraft, 10 billion miles away. “Farewell humans,” tweeted Voyager 2, via its handlers. “Sort it out yourselves.”

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Northwest Passage 'a viable shipping route’ 30 years early

Remember all the excitement last month when Arctic sea ice, rebounding from a record low last year, was found to have blocked the Northwest Passage?

Some claimed this showed the world was actually cooling; in fact, the ice still reached its sixth lowest extent, maintaining a long downward trend. And this week, to widespread surprise, a giant 225-metre-long Danish ship made it through.

The MV Nordic Orion was only the second bulk carrier ever to complete the voyage: an oil tanker squeezed through in 1969, but the difficulty of its ice-hampered trek deterred repetition.

The journey is being hailed as important. “Climate change is advancing more quickly, to the point where the Northwest Passage has become a more viable shipping route, roughly 30 years earlier than most scientists estimated,” says Prof Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia.

The voyage cut 1,000 miles off route from Vancouver to Finland via the Panama Canal, saving four days and £50,000 in fuel, and the ship was able to carry 25 per cent more cargo than via that shallow waterway.

Appropriately, perhaps, its hold was filled with coal – just the stuff to ensure more warming and even less ice.